Auto translation by AI. Be sure, accuracy, nuances and authorial intent may not be fully reflected.

What are you talking about? Paradigm Shift (Part 103) Bontan Ame 🍬

2026年5月15日 12:04

I tried placing a box of Bontan Ame on the tatami mat.

Strangely enough, it looked much more nostalgic than it did on the table.

Even though it's the same box.
Even though it's the same yellow.

Just by changing the background,
I felt like even the temperature of my memories had changed.

I suddenly remembered the 'Bontan Ame 100th Anniversary' ad
I saw on a Yamanote Line train wrap a while back.

Reading the article I wrote back then,
maybe the green hand straps looked like the edges of a tatami mat to me.

Back then,
it was something I was curious about as 'something I've known forever, but haven't touched in a long time.'

However, for some reason, I still hadn't eaten it since then.

Then one day, I found it sitting quietly
at a convenience store inside the station.
(After looking at thebento 🍱🤣)

Before I knew it, I had picked it up.

I think I bought it not for the taste,
but for the memory.

The packaging
looks like it hasn't changed at all.
Dark blue with a red border and yellow fruit.

Only one line seemed to have a little bit of time bleeding through it.

'You can eat it without peeling off the oblate film.'

Come to think of it, I feel like I hear the word 'oblate' itself
less and less in daily life.

The thin film that used to wrap powdered medicine.
Something like 'edible paper.'

Things that used to be understood without explanation
have now become a culture that requires explanation.

Even so, Bontan Ame is still there, unchanged.
That fact alone was a little comforting.

It's not like I ate it every day.
It's not like I have any special memories of it.

Even so, that color and shape
were stored somewhere deep inside.

More than in the subconscious,
in a slightly quieter place.

And then one day, the coincidence of an advertisement
gently opened that drawer.

Nostalgia,
is not just about "things you encountered often in the past,"

but perhaps also quietly dwells in
"things that have always been there."

That is why the Bontan Ame on the tatami mat
reminds me of time, even before the taste.

……Or rather,
I felt as if I were
licking time itself, just a little.

……What are you talking about? 🍬

[FIN]

いいなと思ったら応援しよう！